The Territorial Imperative

"English writers and artists, English composers and folk-singers, have been haunted by this sense of place, in which the echoic simplicities of past use and tradition sanctify a certain spot of ground. These forces are no doubt to be found in other regions and countries of the earth; but in England the reverance for the past and the affinity with the natural landscape join together in a mutual embrace. So we owe much to the ground on which we dwell. It is the landscape and the dreamscape. It encourages a sense of longing and belonging. It is Albion."

Peter Ackroyd, from Albion, the Origins of the English Imagination